One World: Darkness In The Jungle
by small502
Summary: Years before the Keyblade War, hundreds of years before Sora. Three friends lived on the One World.


Hundreds of years before Xehanort's dark campaign

Hundreds of years before the Organization XIII

Before Sora, before Ventus, even before Yensid

A time that only existed as a fairy tale to them

A time when the worlds were one.

The man stood on the ramshackle stone tower, leaning on the wooden railing. He peered out into the jungle's thick foliage and once again he saw nothing. It had been like this for the months that they had been stuck in this forsaken jungle. When they were shipped out here the High Blade said they would be fighting day and night to keep the supposedly important fort from the tribes of warring animal people. Their hope for battle was not broken when they found the fort abandoned, covered in moss and thick, twisting, vines. They figured it was always like that, hence the name Fort Twisting Vine. After a few days they regretted their decision to come; the fort was seemingly in the only spot in the jungle that wasn't in the shadow of the canopy and as a result they were in a constant, sweltering, heat. Even at night the company of Keyblade Bearers suffered. After a month of nothing but labor and heat they all realized that battle would not come. The only excitement they had was when an anthropomorphic jaguar was spotted at the entrance; all of the fort's hundred occupants rushed to defend the gates but all the jaguar did was give the entrance's guard a fish as a gift then left. The troops quickly settled back into a lethargic daze. This month was their fifth one in the jungle.

The man slumped against the towers shoddy wooden railing. He had gotten the nights watch again, he had been getting those a lot recently. He wondered if the captain was still mad at him from the noodle incident.

"I don't think i can survive many more nights up here" the man thought "If captain Mikado wants me to die he should just make me walk around in a parka." the thought amused him. He snickered quietly to himself, picturing a man waddling through the steamy jungle in winter gear. He broke out into a fit of laughter, prompting the woman in the tower nearest to his to stare at him like he had gone insane. This only caused him to laugh even harder, the woman turned away and began talking to a cohort at the base of her tower. He continued writhing on the ground for several minutes.

"I shouldn't be laughing this hard at something so stupid. I must be sleep deprived." He grabbed the loose rail and pulled himself up, his abs flexing painfully as he did.

"It was still a good laugh though" He pulled a wooden stool from the tower's corner and sat in it. He stretched backwards, resting his head on the railing. He was exhausted.

Through the trees he saw the last of the sun's weak light coming through the foliage in two small beams; immediately he became uneasy, feeling something was amiss.

"The sun? What's wrong with the sun?" He shot upright and glanced at his watch, 2:30 am. His breath caught in his throat, something was wrong, something was bad. He shoved his hand into his standard-issue satchel, groping until he found the smooth, metal, cylinder. He pulled out the compass and stared at it, his hands shaking the needle. He was facing north. He looked up and saw that the two yellow beams were closer, much closer.

He summoned his Keyblade, it was bronze with sharp, flowing, teeth like the writing from his home village of Agrabah. No key chain hung from its hilt.

"HEY!" he shouted at the thing, drawing the attention of the female guard and her friend. Her eyes found the moving beams and she summoned her Keyblade, a plain, silver, blade with no chain. The glowing points of light quickly scurried down the tree and onto a massive leaf. The leaf bent under the creature's weight revealing its pitch-black, ant-like, form; its dim yellow eyes sent chills through the guard's skin. He remembered something the High Blade told him when he first joined the Order.

**_Many years ago we found a doorway_**

The black creature lunged at him, he dove out of the way sending the creature smashing into the tower's railing.

_**Beyond which even the light could not shine through**_

He swung his blade at the creature, turning it into a fine black mist. A sound like a tornado tearing through a forest greeted his ears.

**_A land where dark abominations roamed_**

"They're everywhere!" the female guard shouted. The man heard a heavy thud directly behind him. He spun around and caught an attack by one of the creatures, it was tall and humanoid but with the same beady yellow eyes.

**_They fed on the hearts of our men_**

The thing upper-cut him in the stomach and he fell to the floor, smashing his head against the hard rock. In a daze he saw the creature raising a claw to strike.

**_The Heartless we call them_**

A plume of fire hit the heartless in the back of the head and it exploded into a black mist. The man laid on the rough stone staring at the night sky. Not a star nor a moon was out tonight, only solid blackness. Several times he saw the heartless vault over his tower ignoring him completely, they wanted livelier targets in their dark hunt. He could hear the cacophony of battle from inside the walls; the sound of an exploding heartless, the scream of a soldier falling, the whoops of victory. Only one voice pierced the noise

"Fall back to the generator! We can't loose the lights!"

"Captain Mikado..." The sound of his superior's voice snapped him out of the daze. He still had a job to do. He swung his arm onto the rail and heaved himself up. One of the ant-like heartless dove at him from the tree tops; the man, still in a daze, stumbled out of its way. The heartless slammed onto the tower, the quick little creature got ready to pounce again when the man's boot smashed into its head, killing it. From his vantage point on the tower he could see all of the battle below. The Keyblade Bearers were heavily out numbered; the heartless had smashed through the gates and were streaming in from there along with jumping over the wall.

There was a loud crack and a section of wall fell. It wasn't big but the torrent of heartless that spilled out from it made it dangerous. The man aimed his Keyblade at the hole; he was never good with magic but he would do whatever it takes to give his friends the edge. He felt the heat broiling within him, the primal element of fire coursed through him, he was a child of the desert, he knew the heat well. He focused the feeling of fire onto the tip of his Keyblade, just as he was about to shout the words that would mean certain death to some heartless he saw something flicker out of the corner of his eye. A shadow was crawling up the wall near the generator, behind the wall of Keyblade Bearers that were defending it. The shadow was bound by nothing has it slowly slithered up the wall; it had no shape, just a formless blob.

He lowered his Key but kept the fire spell ready to fire. An incredibly muscular arm came out of the shadow which began slowly taking shape. The heartless had a small head with horns and a massive torso. If it had legs the man could not tell because the heartless was still waist deep in the wall; a large blue sword, as large as the heartless itself hung from its hand. The man had no idea why the heartless was just sitting there, it was in the perfect position to cut down anyone. That's when it hit him, it wasn't there to kill, only to destroy the generator, to turn off the lights. He raised his Key as the heartless raised its sword.

"FIRE" he shouted, a torrent of fire sped towards the heartless. Only seconds later did he realize he aimed too low.

He was never good with magic.

The diesel generator caught fire and exploded, taking out the nearest Keyblade Bearers. The explosion was bright enough to illuminate what the lights could not. Thousands of heartless were standing in the trees. Then the lights went out. Humanoid heartless dove down from the trees and grabbed at the flaming generator. No Keyblade Bearers were close enough to stop the heartless from smothering it in darkness.

The only thing the man could see was retina burn from the explosion. His ears wear ringing too badly to hear anything but the piercing cries of his compatriots being killed off. He saw two golden beady eyes appear before him and he saw nothing ever again.

**Author's Note**

So if you couldn't tell this takes place waaaay before any of the KH games. Since ive played KH II years ago i had wondered about the Keyblade War, and before that the whole One World thing (when i played KH when i was little) so this is my whole take on it. I apologize for any spelling errors and grammatical errors. I am a student without Word who types most of this around 1 am. I probably wont update much, monthly or maybe bimonthly if i have too much time to kill. Between school, friends, and writing an actual book i wont have much time for this probably. Also the rating is only T for now, the rating will be upped to M a little later on for reasons i cant say yet but if you leave a review i might just give a hint ;) I also have a blog which can be found at

.com/

It's a silly little thing. So bye for now.

**-Austin "Barbosa"**


End file.
